Mini-Cast Lead II Continues; Rocket Damages Greenhouses

Israeli greenhouses sustained damage from a rocket fired from Gaza Tuesday, and the Air Force responded by bombing a Hamas training base.

By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

First Publish: 1/5/2011, 8:42 AM / Last Update: 1/5/2011, 8:37 AM

Flash 90

Israeli greenhouses on a farm near Ashkelon sustained damage from a terrorist rocket fired from Gaza Tuesday, and the Air Force responded by bombing a Hamas training base.

No one was inured in the greenhouse attack. Terrorists from Hamas-controlled Gaza have escalated rocket fire in the past several weeks, firing dozens of missiles and mortar shells at Israeli civilians and soldiers in Gaza Belt communities, causing several injuries.

Two weeks ago, a rocket narrowly missed a direct hit on a kibbutz kindergarten.

The IDF continued its policy of retaliating after every attack, and planes bombed a smuggling tunnel near the Egyptian-Gazan border city of Rafiah and bombed a Hamas post. Until last month, Israel has refrained from directly striking Hamas terrorists unless they were ”ticking bombs.”

Spokespersons for the military confirmed that the air force struck “centers of terrorist activities.”

The increase in terrorist attacks has reached levels not seen since the months preceding the three-week Cast Lead counter terrorist campaign two years ago. Foreign media continue to incorrectly report that most of the Gaza casualties in Cast Lead were civilians. Hamas recently has admitted that several hundred of the people who died in the three-week battles were members of its terrorist organization.